Unfortunately for him, DCU had assigned him a roommate back at the start of the academic term. Trying to nudge his parents into getting him out of this wretched fate had gone exactly nowhere, only led to their collective and inherently delusional decision that learning to share a space with someone other than his younger siblings would somehow be “good” for Baz. Thus, had Kenneth come into Baz’s life.
On paper, nothing about Kenneth particularly rankled or left anything to be desired. He had a preference for going by “Kenny” instead of “Ken” or the full name that Baz didn’t understand personally, but that didn’t mean anything was wrong with either him or his conduct. In practice, however, Kenneth had a significant other, whose name had never stuck in Baz’s head, so he mentally referred to her as “Barbie.” It suited her well enough, he thought—in that she was white, and blonde, and sleeping with someone named Ken—and if he were honest, Baz had to admit that there probably wasn’t anything wrong with her, either.
Except for the locale in which she and Kenneth regularly chose to conduct their intimate affairs.
Except for the fact that Baz also occupied the room in question, and this evening—as had happened often enough that he’d stopped counting—Baz had returned to find a hateful little tiger-striped lanyard necklace dangling off the door-handle. A sure sign that Barbie and Kenneth needed some personal space, it repelled Baz as instantly and effectively as garlic for a vampire.
Nominally, they had a system worked out. If Baz saw the lanyard on the door, he would simply leave and wait for a text that Barbie and Kenneth had finished. Tonight, however, he’d already picked at a salad in the dining hall for the sake of using up a meal plan slot. He’d gotten ahead of some homework in the library. He’d gone to the campus gym and showered off after he’d finished the extra workout. He’d swung by one of the coffee shops in the gym’s vicinity to grab some green tea.
Yet, standing in a park near campus with his gym bag on his shoulder and his hair tied back in a ponytail, Baz had no text messages from his roommate. A couple from his parents, one from Gwen, one from a classmate who hadn’t been in lecture earlier today and had yet to find a hookup for the notes, one from some guy who reeked of off-putting desperation even in text form—but absolutely none from Kenneth, telling Baz that he could come back to the room now. All the time-filling nonsense he’d turned to and <******** yet.
Grumbling softly, Baz sat on one of the benches around the fountain at the center of the park. Given the curfew at Romano’s, light’s out had already come for Gwen, so texting the sister wasn’t the best bet. Either of his fathers were open, though……or Mom……or Aunt Mina, who always felt quite a bit less like “Mama” for Baz than she did for his younger siblings and that distance made the concept of texting her about all this feel less weird.…… He probably needed to leave before too long; everybody knew how unsafe things could get in Destiny City after dark. But deciding on a friend or parent to text probably wouldn’t take Baz long enough for anything to happen.
a-disgruntled-dragon_
